As Avalanche await Erik Johnson's diagnosis, a nail hovers over their coffin

In October, I wrote about the unique silence of a locker room following a blowout loss. Tonight, we heard the deafening silence of a standing-room-only sellout crowd at the Pepsi Center followed by the sound of something we haven’t heard from this year’s Colorado Avalanche team: defeat.

As J.T. Compher angrily slammed his gear into the hamper in the middle of the room, Blake Comeau quietly tried to explain the team’s come-from-ahead 4-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Across the room, Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon, sitting just feet apart from each other, struggled to find any words at all in their respective postgame media scrums. MacKinnon tersely insisted he was 100% healthy, Landeskog fell back on the cliche of having a short memory and getting back to work.

Alone for several minutes before reporters eventually made their way to them for their thoughts on the team’s first home loss in their last 11 games, Sam Girard and Nikita Zadorov sat quietly, staring off into the distance. As players refused to lean on the excuse of finishing the game with four defensemen, they all danced around what the unique moment in time seemed to make obvious to everyone else:

It was over.

Colorado had come so far, been such a great story for so much of the season, but Johnson’s injury left the warrior in obvious pain on the ice as he writhed about for what felt like eons before the training staff helped him to the cover of the arena’s hallways. That moment seemed to take the proverbial air out of the building. His teammates watched their 2-1 lead become a 4-2 deficit without being particularly competitive along the way.

The Avalanche had just gone through eight-plus games without Nathan MacKinnon, whose transformation into a superstar elevated them into legitimate playoff contenders before his injury. They weathered that storm and today’s game was supposed to be about the excitement of welcoming back their best player, only for it to become the nightmare of watching arguably their second-best player, and by far their best defenseman, leave with an injury.

Early indications are we may not see Johnson again this season.

With 24 games remaining, the Avalanche are still just three points behind the Minnesota Wild for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings currently sit between the Wild and the Avs. It’s not an insurmountable task, of course, but how do they recover from losing the defenseman who was giving them 25:43 of quality ice time every night?

Sure, Nikita Zadorov will see bigger minutes, which should ultimately be a good thing in the development of a player who has clearly turned the corner this year from a bundle of potential into a bonafide reliable defenseman. Yeah, baby-faced Sam Girard likely will see his responsibilities increased, especially if the other defenseman hurt, Anton Lindholm, is also out for an extended period of time. Patrik Nemeth, whose role was already expanding beyond any logical reasoning, will likely continue to see his minutes move upwards, as well as mainstay Tyson Barrie.

But the reality is none of them are Erik Johnson. They can’t replicate his importance to the locker room, where he’s long been an honest voice, unafraid of unleashing harsh reality on his teammates and media alike. Nor can they replicate the high level of two-way play he brings to the ice every night, where his ability to thrive against top competition defensively can quickly translate into offense going the other direction. There simply is no replacing No. 6 in the Avalanche lineup.

Depending on the severity of the injuries to Johnson and Lindholm, we may see multiple players called up from San Antonio. Duncan Siemens is already here and could fill Lindholm’s role pretty naturally and Chris Bigras and Andrei Mironov have each had cups of coffee with the Avalanche this year. Maybe David Warsofsky gets the call or the Avs go in a bold direction and reward Nicolas Meloche for this recent run of good play. It doesn’t really matter.

At the start of the day, the Avalanche were all about getting MacKinnon back and making a push towards the postseason. Fast forward to nightfall and the franchise is again facing the sobering reality of a high-profile injury and asking themselves what the final 24 games of the season really mean.

There will be a time for perspective and positivity. It may even come quickly. There will be a long-term appreciation for the results of a game on Feb. 18, even having meaning for a team that produced a 48-point season last year. Down the road, we’ll look back and talk about how this was the season the Avalanche kickstarted their rebuild into gear and began to see results. We’ll recall the breakout of MacKinnon, the maturation of Mikko Rantanen, and the quiet growth of teenagers Girard and Tyson Jost. But not yet.

Maybe tomorrow everyone gets to the rink and Johnson (and Lindholm!) narrowly dodged a serious injury and will only be out for a game or two. Maybe another injury to a player of great importance will galvanize the locker room and send them on a memorable run towards the postseason anyway. The future is certainly still unwritten.

But it sure feels like we skipped ahead in the choose-your-own-adventure novel and found an ending we’ve seen before. One that ends in another NHL season without postseason hockey in Denver.